My hope is the president will meet with us, Portman said, adding that Republicans have had little success in their attempts to meet with the Biden administration to present their priorities for the next stimulus package. This one, nobody was consulted, including the Democrats on our bipartisan group that compiled the previous legislation, and, frankly, we haven’t gotten much of a response yet until today, he added.
Bash then asked how much Republicans would be willing to spend on a COVID-19 stimulus package, noting that a letter released Sunday by Sen. Susan Collins
“It’ll be less than $1.9 [trillion] because a lot of what the administration has released has nothing to do with COVID-19,” Portman responded.
Sanders comments suggests that Democrats believe they could avoid defections among members of their own party.
“Yes, I believe that we do [have the votes] because it s hard for me to imagine any Democrat, no matter what state he or she may come from, who doesn t understand the need to go forward right now in an aggressive way to protect the working families of this country,” Sanders said. [A]t the end of the day, we re going to support the president of the United States, and we re going to come forward, and we re going to do what the American people overwhelmingly want us to do.